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Apparently it's possible to have a lab explode on you even at extremely high levels of skill investment, which seems counter-intuitive. Not going to go into what the fix is but I will say that the only reason I even know that there is one is because Cerberus OOC shouted about it like a year ago.
Labs cost a lot of chy and take a long time to be able to use properly if you want the most out of them, yet with one error that could even be more OOC than it is IC, boom. To my knowledge there is no other skill in the game that works like this and I think it would be better if failures gave you a chance to repair your equipment and not just take it away from you immediately.
If you get shot up and you lose your gear you can buy it back or otherwise find a way to get it back as long as it hasn't been shredded by some otherworldly means. If you crash an expensive vehicle you can have it repaired as long as you're willing to fork out the extra chy. Generally, if you fuck up elsewhere you almost always have a chance to recover that doesn't involve 'just buy a new one'.
Maybe this needs to be looked at.
By Necronex666 at Dec 19, 2019 7:10 AM
I agree with this. Labs right now feel a little too punishing - Though my experiences date to back about a year ago.
I feel like lessening the punishment of losing labs would make it much healthier than it is now. Just my 2 chy.
By Kyrius00 at Dec 19, 2019 7:27 AM
From a balance perspective, I can see why it is like this though. No other skill produces high demand consumable items (it's akin to printing money). So having the risk be having to buy new kit seems like a reasonable balance mechanism.
By RedSteelButterfly at Dec 19, 2019 8:34 AM
That's not how it is at all. I can't delve into it as it's something you should figure out ICly, but you're sorely mistaken if you think it's as simple as "I have a lab, I can print chy now."
There's plenty of other skills that can basically do this anyway with a lot less effort and investment.
By Kyrius00 at Dec 19, 2019 8:36 AM
Tossing two chy onto the table here.
A suit of armor or a vehicle will never pay for itself like handing a decent chemist a kids-first-bakingsoda-volcano kit. I mean yes, they certainly can if you play them right, but not nearly as effortlessly. While your pilot is out there earning every single ding and scrape, the chemist is at home watching re-runs while sipping vanilla silk from a fancy glass.
A very high payout for very high risk, especially a risk that can be mitigated? Nothing wrong here.
If anything, my suggestion would be to address to mitigating factor. It just feels clunky and easily made useless.
But again, just my two chy.
By Solitaire at Dec 19, 2019 8:37 AM
From what I can see a 'highly skilled chemist' blowing up a lab is probably because they chose to ignore an important stat. Also, there are a variety of skills that can be affected in similar ways so this is not just a thing with chemists and labs. Lastly, labs are carefully balanced - we need to consider earnings vs cost and risk vs reward. You will never get a money printing machine with just a flat cost and/or no risk.
By Mobius at Dec 19, 2019 9:50 AM
Equivalents can happen with any other skill.
By HolyChrome at Dec 19, 2019 11:37 AM
I don't think the issue is that the lab can blow up, I believe necro is saying they'd like a way if a lab does blow up that there'd be a means to repair it - with an appropriate cost - rather than a complete destruction.
By crashdown at Dec 19, 2019 11:55 AM
I'm really not sure why people think owning a lab means you can "print chyen". That's completely incorrect but I can't really get into why on this thread. Also, I meant that with other skills your equipment doesn't just disappear if you mess up with it.
What crashdown said though, if they go boom they shouldn't just be gone. Why not put it in an unusable state where a tech has to repair it before you can use it again? The initial investment already makes up for the incorrect assumption of "chyen printing" as well because it takes months just to get back what you spent on one.
By Necronex666 at Dec 19, 2019 12:23 PM
Having lost a lab (and the resulting monetary investment) in exactly this manner, I can affirm that while frustrating it still felt themely and gave me a reason to explore how it could be avoided in the future. I think sometimes you just take a bad bounce and if it's not happening frequently it's probably fine.
By Crooknose at Dec 19, 2019 2:35 PM
Would you prefer one big boom that happens rarely, or frequent breakdowns that require parts and labor to fix?
For me I'd prefer it all at once instead of constant maintenance.
By ynk at Dec 19, 2019 6:36 PM
Nobody said anything about frequent repairs. What I suggested is that the explosion that removes a piece of expensive equipment from the game permanently is replaced by damage that maybe takes a third or half the cost of the equipment itself to fix.
All I've gotten so far against that is that labs print chy, which is really not the case when you consider investment, time spent for it to pay itself off, time spent learning how to use it to the fullest, time spent actually producing drugs and time spent moving those drugs.
Not sure why after all that there still needs to be the risk of a hundred kay just being lost because you forgot to type a command. Remember that labs require you to check in on them, which is an added layer of work on top of everything I just mentioned.
By Necronex666 at Dec 19, 2019 7:26 PM
Nobody said anything about frequent repairs. What I suggested is that the explosion that removes a piece of expensive equipment from the game permanently is replaced by damage that maybe takes a third or half the cost of the equipment itself to fix.
All I've gotten so far against that is that labs print chy, which is really not the case when you consider investment, time spent for it to pay itself off, time spent learning how to use it to the fullest, time spent actually producing drugs and time spent moving those drugs.
Not sure why after all that there still needs to be the risk of a hundred kay just being lost because you forgot to type a command. Remember that labs require you to check in on them, which is an added layer of work on top of everything I just mentioned.
By Necronex666 at Dec 19, 2019 7:26 PM
It's probably a measure to promote turnover and acquisition of new equipment as that necessarily involves more people and risk than a skillsoft and some consumable tools. It also helps pull these things out of circulation.
By Vera at Dec 19, 2019 9:35 PM
I feel like drugs were underutilized before, then Slither made adjustments and people contributed the experience scripts and I'm assuming people are using them more. I feel like I've been using them more.
At the moment I feel like drugs are semi-plentiful and relatively easy to buy as a consumer, which suggests that the drug biz is already doing fine. I'm not arguing that they're chy printing machines, I lost over a hundred kay when I dipped my toes, but it seems like things are pretty well balanced at the moment, right?
By Crooknose at Dec 19, 2019 10:53 PM
This isn't a matter of using skillsofts. Though allowing techs the opportunity to repair broken labs that require very expensive tools to handle would also get other characters involved. Why I mentioned in the original post that there are already very high skill involved here, it's just that the error itself is caused because of how one of the relating stats is handled.
And this isn't a matter of how balanced things are. It's about possibly slipping up with an OOC command and losing a valuable piece of equipment without any chance to save it whatsoever.
By Necronex666 at Dec 20, 2019 7:27 AM
This isn't a matter of using skillsofts. Though allowing techs the opportunity to repair broken labs that require very expensive tools to handle would also get other characters involved. Why I mentioned in the original post that there are already very high skill involved here, it's just that the error itself is caused because of how one of the relating stats is handled.
And this isn't a matter of how balanced things are. It's about possibly slipping up with an OOC command and losing a valuable piece of equipment without any chance to save it whatsoever.
By Necronex666 at Dec 20, 2019 7:27 AM
I Think there are already IC ways to avoid your lab blowing up or at least mitigate the risk.
By villa at Dec 20, 2019 1:39 PM
Critical failure even at high level of skill is much more common than you think. Be @lucky.
By ReeferMadness at Dec 20, 2019 4:19 PM
That's my whole point Reefer, I just didn't want to be that direct. With what labs require it's actually very easy to forget to toggle a command when you're sleepy and just logging in to make sure your batch doesn't go bad.
Maybe if that shit toggled automatically the immediate loss of property would far less an issue. I just don't understand why it's as easy as making a very simple OOC error after all the stat investment, skill investment, chyen investment and time investment to lose valuable equipment over a slight error.
Keep in mind that @luck drains for every single thing you do and not just the important things, even when it shouldn't. For anyone that may have said you could just leave it on always.
By Necronex666 at Dec 20, 2019 6:49 PM
That's my whole point Reefer, I just didn't want to be that direct. With what labs require it's actually very easy to forget to toggle a command when you're sleepy and just logging in to make sure your batch doesn't go bad.
Maybe if that shit toggled automatically the immediate loss of property would far less an issue. I just don't understand why it's as easy as making a very simple OOC error after all the stat investment, skill investment, chyen investment and time investment to lose valuable equipment over a slight error.
Keep in mind that @luck drains for every single thing you do and not just the important things, even when it shouldn't. For anyone that may have said you could just leave it on always.
By Necronex666 at Dec 20, 2019 6:49 PM
*I need a new mouse. Busted shit keeps double posting everything.
By Necronex666 at Dec 20, 2019 6:50 PM
I want to weigh in about no other skill in the game working like this. Every skill in the game actually works like this. Critical Success, Success, Failure, Critical Failure. It's pretty similar to your typical DnD. Anyone can roll a critical failure, regardless of skill level.
Now, in terms of other places where a critical failure has such a high punishment-- there are some. Ceramic composite katanas which are on par with labs price wise will break if you critical fail on them a few times. We lessened this check a while back, so that it wasn't as punishing.
I thought we did the same for labs. I'll take a look and see if that is the case.
By Slither at Dec 22, 2019 2:10 PM
Appreciated, Slither.
My phrasing was pretty bad though. Meant the instant destruction of gear after that sort of failed roll, which you did cover anyway when you mentioned the ceramic composite.
By Necronex666 at Dec 22, 2019 6:20 PM
